March 13, 2007
Best Practices Offering Free Report: 'Call Center Ops: Winning Strategies and Tactical Deployments for Success'
By Patrick Barnard, Group Managing Editor, TMCnet
Best Practices, a research, consulting and publishing firm that is a leader in the field of best practice benchmarking, recently released a report showing that 55 percent of call centers have a formalized process to identify, capture and disseminate best practices to encourage process improvement. Many call centers have been using best practices as their primary training tool to improve service quality and reduce errors. This, in turn, helps boost revenue.
The report was compiled from notes taken during speaker presentations and in-depth roundtable discussions at the February 2007 Global Benchmarking Council meeting, “Call Center Ops: Winning Strategies and Tactical Deployments for Success” - one of three annual conferences hosted by the Global Benchmarking Council for members and guests. Attendees of this meeting heard case studies and learned about recent research through roundtable discussions with industry peers and by networking with members and guests of the GBC.
Industries profiled during the event - and in the report - include Insurance; Manufacturing; Aerospace; Banking; Energy; Financial Services; Pharmaceutical; Telecommunications; Computer Software; Diversified; Computer Hardware; Computers; High Tech; Health Care; Publishing; Media; Internet; Chemical. Companies profiled Accident Fund Company; Benjamin Moore; Boeing; CenterPoint Energy; CNH Capital; DuPont Teijin Films; Eli Lilly and Company; Embarq (News - Alert); eTalk; Fujitsu; GE Money; Hewlett-Packard; Intuit; Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems; Marvin Windows and Doors; MetLife; NetBank; PSEG; Teradata; Thomson (News - Alert); Vegas.com; and WR Grace.
The case studies discussed in the report describe key challenges company leaders faced and how they overcame them. Also included are speaker anecdotes, quotes, select slides, insights and key take-aways.
For example, Intuit offered insight into how its contact center for TurboTax manages the unusual, seasonal business model and how it enhances representatives’ abilities to deliver great customer service and meet or exceed customers’ high expectations during the high-volume tax season in “Utilizing VoIP
& the Web to Create Great Customer Experiences.”
EMBARQ explained how it managed to mount a million dollar challenge (when transitioning from Sprint (News - Alert) to EMBARQ) through utilizing previous lessons learned from other GBC meetings and learning the value of immediate feedback from customers, managers and call center employees in “The Million Dollar Challenge: The Price of Immediate Feedback.”
Teradata (News - Alert) shared examples of how significance, relevance and timing are key in the training of call center employees to ensure success in driving high value through optimal customer interactions in “Winning Strategies for Customer Interaction Management.”
Best Practices delivered results of a benchmarking study on the evolving role of the contact center manager. Results of the study, that highlighted findings culled from 40 companies, were then used as a springboard for conversation in the roundtable discussions that followed “The Evolving Role of the Contact Center Manager.”
NetBank advocated the importance of empowering reps as a means to generating success in the call center and offered actionable insights on the level of managers’ time and effort spent communicating direction and objectives to them in “The Transformation Imperative: Strategies for the 21st Century Contact Center.”
Vegas.com stressed the need for managers to coach in real-time to get the optimal results from contact center reps and also to think inside the box about technology and processes in “Thinking outside the Box: Going beyond Technology’s Core Functionality.” Meeting attendees visited the Vegas.com call center, a state-of-the-art facility, and experienced a fresh approach at contact center management.
To get a free copy of the report, visit www3.best-in-class.com/gr102.htm.
For more information about Best Practices’ Global Benchmarking Council, visit www.globalbenchmarking.com.
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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.
The report was compiled from notes taken during speaker presentations and in-depth roundtable discussions at the February 2007 Global Benchmarking Council meeting, “Call Center Ops: Winning Strategies and Tactical Deployments for Success” - one of three annual conferences hosted by the Global Benchmarking Council for members and guests. Attendees of this meeting heard case studies and learned about recent research through roundtable discussions with industry peers and by networking with members and guests of the GBC.
Industries profiled during the event - and in the report - include Insurance; Manufacturing; Aerospace; Banking; Energy; Financial Services; Pharmaceutical; Telecommunications; Computer Software; Diversified; Computer Hardware; Computers; High Tech; Health Care; Publishing; Media; Internet; Chemical. Companies profiled Accident Fund Company; Benjamin Moore; Boeing; CenterPoint Energy; CNH Capital; DuPont Teijin Films; Eli Lilly and Company; Embarq (News - Alert); eTalk; Fujitsu; GE Money; Hewlett-Packard; Intuit; Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems; Marvin Windows and Doors; MetLife; NetBank; PSEG; Teradata; Thomson (News - Alert); Vegas.com; and WR Grace.
The case studies discussed in the report describe key challenges company leaders faced and how they overcame them. Also included are speaker anecdotes, quotes, select slides, insights and key take-aways.
For example, Intuit offered insight into how its contact center for TurboTax manages the unusual, seasonal business model and how it enhances representatives’ abilities to deliver great customer service and meet or exceed customers’ high expectations during the high-volume tax season in “Utilizing VoIP
& the Web to Create Great Customer Experiences.”EMBARQ explained how it managed to mount a million dollar challenge (when transitioning from Sprint (News - Alert) to EMBARQ) through utilizing previous lessons learned from other GBC meetings and learning the value of immediate feedback from customers, managers and call center employees in “The Million Dollar Challenge: The Price of Immediate Feedback.”
Teradata (News - Alert) shared examples of how significance, relevance and timing are key in the training of call center employees to ensure success in driving high value through optimal customer interactions in “Winning Strategies for Customer Interaction Management.”
Best Practices delivered results of a benchmarking study on the evolving role of the contact center manager. Results of the study, that highlighted findings culled from 40 companies, were then used as a springboard for conversation in the roundtable discussions that followed “The Evolving Role of the Contact Center Manager.”
NetBank advocated the importance of empowering reps as a means to generating success in the call center and offered actionable insights on the level of managers’ time and effort spent communicating direction and objectives to them in “The Transformation Imperative: Strategies for the 21st Century Contact Center.”
Vegas.com stressed the need for managers to coach in real-time to get the optimal results from contact center reps and also to think inside the box about technology and processes in “Thinking outside the Box: Going beyond Technology’s Core Functionality.” Meeting attendees visited the Vegas.com call center, a state-of-the-art facility, and experienced a fresh approach at contact center management.
To get a free copy of the report, visit www3.best-in-class.com/gr102.htm.
For more information about Best Practices’ Global Benchmarking Council, visit www.globalbenchmarking.com.
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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.
